Analysis of Foreign Lands
Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)
You may roam the wide seas over, follow, meet, and cross the sun,
Sail as far as ships can sail, and travel far as trains can run;
You may ride and tramp wherever range or plain or sea expands,
But the crowd has been before you, and you’ll not find ‘Foreign Lands;’
For the Early Days are over,
And no more the white-winged rover
Sinks the gale-worn coast of England bound for bays in Foreign Lands.
Foreign Lands are in the distance dim and dreamlike, faint and far,
Long ago, and over yonder, where our boyhood fancies are,
For the land is by the railway cramped as though with iron bands,
And the steamship and the cable did away with Foreign Lands.
Ah! the days of blue and gold!
When the news was six months old—
But the news was worth the telling in the days of Foreign Lands.
Here we slave the dull years hopeless for the sake of Wool and Wheat
Here the homes of ugly Commerce—niggard farm and haggard street;
Yet our mothers and our fathers won the life the heart demands—
Less than fifty years gone over, we were born in Foreign Lands.
When the gipsies stole the children still, in village tale and song,
And the world was wide to travel, and the roving spirit strong;
When they dreamed of South Sea Islands, summer seas and coral strands—
Then the bravest hearts of England sailed away to Foreign Lands,
‘Fitting foreign’—flood and field—
Half the world and orders sealed—
And the first and best of Europe went to fight in Foreign Lands.
Canvas towers on the ocean—homeward bound and outward bound—
Glint of topsails over islands—splash of anchors in the sound;
Then they landed in the forests, took their strong lives in their hands,
And they fought and toiled and conquered—making homes in Foreign Lands,
Through the cold and through the drought—
Further on and further out—
Winning half the world for England in the wilds of Foreign Lands.
Love and pride of life inspired them when the simple village hearts
Followed Master Will and Harry—gone abroad to ‘furrin parts’
By our townships and our cities, and across the desert sands
Are the graves of those who fought and died for us in Foreign Lands—
Gave their young lives for our sake
(Was it all a grand mistake?)
Sons of Master Will and Harry born abroad in Foreign Lands!
Ah, my girl, our lives are narrow, and in sordid days like these,
I can hate the things that banished ‘Foreign Lands across the seas,’
But with all the world before us, God above us—hearts and hands,
I can sail the seas in fancy far away to Foreign Lands.
Scheme | AABBCCBDDBBEEB FFBB GGBBHHB IIBBJJB KKBBLLB MMBB |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111011101010101 111111101011111 111010101111101 101110110111101 10101110 01101110 101111101110101 10110010101101 101010101101101 10111011111101 00100101011101 1011101 1011111 101110100011101 111011101011101 101110101010101 11010010101010101 111011101010101 10110101010101 001111100010101 111111101010101 101011101011101 1010101 1010101 001011101110101 101010101010101 11110101110001 111000101111011 011010101010101 1010101 1010101 101011100011101 1011101011010101 10101010101111 11010010100010101 101111101110101 11111101 1110101 111010101010101 1111011100010111 111011101010101 111010111011101 111010101011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 2,515 |
Words | 458 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 14, 4, 7, 7, 7, 4 |
Lines Amount | 43 |
Letters per line (avg) | 46 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 328 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 76 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:17 min read
- 102 Views
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"Foreign Lands" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17796/foreign-lands>.
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